Requiem
Requiem is a former alchemy test subject living in the North. Appearance and Character Requiem is a sallow-skinned woman with short, badly cut brown hair broken up by several patches of bronze. Her form is small and lithe, partially starved, with heavy scarring from cuts and chemical burns, the most notable being her left forearm. The limb has been heavily damaged by acid, to the point that it is barely operable; Requiem has difficulty lifting anything heavier than a few pounds with the arm. History Requiem was born nine years ago. Her body isn't nine years old, but Requiem is, as the girl that lived four and ten years before her died when the first of many poisons filled her veins. Nobody remembers her anymore; only Requiem. She was born when the girl was kidnapped from the forest she had wandered by the alchemist, an ambitious old man with the drive to research the human body, and unravel all its secrets. To that end, he hid in the mountains of the North and took live test subjects, filling them with potions and poisons and recording the results. Sometimes he put them in other situations, such as fighting an animal or attempting to consume food while under the effects of his drugs. Requiem was filled with these substances as often as she ate and drank, and sometimes being dosed with more than she ate in a month. Other test subjects came, and others died as the alchemist murdered them with poison, acid, fatal injury and anything else he dreamed up to test on them. Requiem didn't join them, however; instead, those nine years she spent learning, growing to survive in this man-made hell that was all she could remember. She learned how to mix and brew the concoctions the alchemist made, sitting where she could see the alchemist working and moving her hands in time with the old man's, learning the names of the ingredients and how to measure them. She learned how to make herself scarce when the alchemist planned for a deadly outcome, hiding in the crowd when there were many others and vanishing in the shadows when few were around. At times she tried to escape, but it was for naught; the alchemist took every precaution to keep his experiments from escaping. When the test subjects turned violent, or the alchemist used dangerous animals in his experiments, Requiem learned to fight back, dashing and dodging with her compact form and slashing with a small shank she took from an old woman that had used it to relieve her suffering and that of her husband. Her last talent came when she saw the faces of the dead, and imagined from their expressions how they felt in the minutes leading up to their demise. She spoke this, then sang, filling the caverns that the alchemist trapped them in with beautiful, haunting melodies. The alchemist greatly enjoyed these songs, and as the girl survived for months and years named her after them, knowing their subject and meaning. The alchemist died in 368 AC, in the Third Moon of Spring. Out of all those that the alchemist used for his experiments, Requiem was the only survivor. She spent a few days gathering supplies and cursing the alchemist for nine years of torture, then made her way back out of the caverns and into the world that she once lived in, but now seemed alien and daunting. Recent Events Family No known family Category:Northerner